The Motivations and Behaviours of Professional Networking
2015 IMP Conference COMPETITIVE PaperSana Marroun, University of Western Sydney
Louise Young, University of Western Sydney and University of Southern Denmark
Abstract
This paper focuses on the reflections of managers as to the nature and value of professional
networking. Most often this has been considered as a “pre-relationship” stage when the
assumption is that relationships are being sought and relational opportunities explored. Most
work in this area focuses on the determinants of the successes of networking, i.e. under what
circumstances a relationship is built and/or on the nature of the success, that is the nature and
scale of the value that such relationships produce.
This research shifts the focus to the activities of seeking and building contacts and a deeper
understanding of how the short and long term value that is sought influences this process. The
research is informed by the literatures of relationship value development, networking as a
behavioural process and environmental psychology. The sequence of behaviours that occur
during the course of an event and the thought processes that guide these interconnected
actions, rather than particular actions are the focus.
Transcripts of thirty in-depth interviews with managers who participated in networking
events are analysed using the programme, Leximancer. Leximancer quantifies key concepts
occurring in text based by the way words travel together, thereby summarising these
discussions. The interviews focus on what participants think they did at the events and why
they behaved as they did. This is augmented by reflections stimulated by photos taken at
events. The analysis shows that: 1) there is considerable variation in the reflections on the
nature and motives behind networking behaviour, 2) the mental processes that underpin the
observed behaviour guides behaviour in ways that are not always obvious to an observer, 3)
there are different value dimensions within managers’ reflections which differentially impact
on behaviour. The paper concludes with consideration of how firms can best utilize
networking events to build their profile and business and how managers can use networking
events to build their own relationship and network competence.
Introduction
Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you begin
with A B C. When you sing you begin with Do Re Me… (Rogers and Hammerstein
1959)
Relationships are a central focus of IMP research. However there is little IMP work that
considers the very beginning of B2B relationships, i.e. the when, where, how and why
contact first occurs and an interaction takes place and the influence this has on formation of a
business contact and a relationship that (perhaps) emerges. In business, first contacts can
happen accidently but are often engineered; people seek those that they think can be
beneficial and/or they continuously think strategically about the value of forming contacts
with the people they meet in a range of situations (Ibarra and Hunter 2007).
This paper considers non-accidental beginnings, in other words the seeking of business
contacts. We consider motives and actions before, during and after managers network with
prospective contacts and the value they perceive they receive in doing so. The more specific
context of this research is to consider the nature and value when attending organised
networking events.
A lack of attention to the activities occurring at relationships’ very beginning is surprising.
According to complexity theory, path dependency is inevitable in social systems, i.e. the
actions at critical junctures determine the subsequent evolution of systems. This combined
with complex systems’ high sensitivity to starting conditions means that that it is likely that
relationships’ evolution very much depend on their very beginning (Wilkinson and Young
2002).
Networking may not lead to sales but can nevertheless provide value. In the popular and
practitioner media the value of networking for personal and professional advancement and
the ways this can and should be done is much-discussed (e.g. Powell 2014). This has led
emergence of an industry who sell services including seminars, workshops and coaching to
improve networking skills (e.g. firms such as The Strategic Business Network;
http://www.strategicbusinessnetwork.com/about/importance) as well as firms who build and
sell access to “high quality” networks.
Their promotions often focus on the importance of the very beginning – the initial
impression. For example in Forbes Magazine Van Petten (2011) argues that assessments that
are difficult to overturn are made the first moments of contact and this echoes throughout
academic literature where in considering the beginnings of friendships appearance (Dion,
Berschieid and Walster 1972), reputation (Raub and Weesie 1990) and social skills (Baron
and Markman 2000) were originally considered. More recently the subtleties of the persona
that is projected in initial encounters, things such as trustworthiness, confidence, etc., have
been the focus (e.g. Cuddy, Kohut and Neffinger 2013). While there is no consensus as to
what drives attraction in first contacts, throughout, it is recognized that networking facilitates
building a contact base and that this can ultimately provide economic benefit (Garrett 2015).
And a common thread through much of this hype, rhetoric and serious discussion is the
importance of the very early stages of contact in building relationships.
The remainder of this paper considers the very early stages of relationships via the literatures
of business relationships and their development, networking as a means of relationship
development and environmental psychology. Following this, a study which considers the
motivation, activity and perceived networking value of those who attend networking events is
presented. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for
practitioners and future research.
Theories of Relationships and Networking
Multiple strands of literature inform this research with the nature and role of relationships at
the core. The assumption is that business relationships are necessary and desirable. Contacts
are made and relationships emerge because there is “double search” by interested parties for
them (Alderson 1965). The double search occurs within the very beginning of the relationship
process. One form of double search is networking; the nature and environment of this
process is the focus of this study. The value perceived to emerge from networking including
possible contacts and relationships are a further focus.
The Nature, Processes and Evolution of Business Relationships
Theories of social psychology tell us that relationships are needed for physical and emotional
well-being, i.e. man requires not only the security and specialization that relationships allow
but also needs relationships to enable effective cognitive and emotional functioning (Argyle
1991). In addition to individual relationships, a wider network of connected social
relationships furthers well-being both by providing informational, contactual and social
resources and more generally providing a coping mechanism that provides social support
(Brissette, Scheier and Carver 2002) and buffers individuals from stress and alienation by
providing psychological security, (Cohen and Wills 1985) and social capital (Thompson
2005).
The value of cooperative relationships for both social and economic purposes was recognized
by early marketing scholars (e.g. Alderson 1965). Relationships have continued to be a focus
in marketing both with the “birth” of the IMP group’s relational research and the growth of
“relationship marketing” in the 1990s in services (Berry 2002, Bendapudi and Berry 1997),
consumer marketing (Gruen 1995) and business marketing (Evans and Laskin 1994, Payne,
Christopher, Peck and Clarke 1998) ). However much of this work and that which follows is
concerned with customer retention (Berry 1995), drawing on the earlier work of writers such
as Levitt (1986) and Jackson (1985) who argued that keeping (industrial) customers was a, if
not the, central task of firms, (However there is an alternative focus in the literature of
international business where there is consideration of elements of attraction and repulsion in
making contact and forming relationships that allow market entry in discussions of psychic
distance (e.g. Conway and Swift 2000)). This is in marked contrast to the study of personal
relationships, particularly of close relationships where there is a massive amount of popular
and scientific literature that considers the social and biological factors that cause attraction
such that the relationships that sometimes follow can be predicted (see Wilkinson, Young and
Freytag 2005 for an overview of the biology and psychology literatures).
In business marketing relationships are often conceptualized as commencing with the first
transaction and as being built within subsequent transactions (Levitt 1986). Relationship
“development” is conceptualized as a process where factors such as trust, satisfaction, social
bonds and relational investments impacted on an entity’s development of commitment (e.g.
Anderson and Weitz 1992; Wilson and Mummalaneni 1986) within repeat transactions and
growing attachment to the trading partner (Jarvis and Wilcox 1977). In other words,
development happens after some attachment has been formed. However, this work does not
address how the attachment happens.
The much-cited work of Ford (1980) and Dwyer, Schurr and Oh (1987) presents models of
relationship development which include a pre-relationship stage. In these models
relationships develop as they "mature" through time and through continuing transactions which often increase in scope and/or frequency. The business relationship cycle is usually
conceptualized as a series of discrete stages, initiation, development, management and
termination or institutionalization. A small amount of subsequent work in B2B has further
considered the initiation phase, articulating it in part as a “pre-relationship” stage concerned
with identifying and investigating potential suppliers (e.g. Anderson 2001). However there is
limited concern in the contemporary relationship marketing literature with these very early
parts of relationship process. This may in part be because relationship development models
depict low levels of activity, usually conceptualized in terms of infrequent communication,
lack of firm or relation profitability, and/or low levels of communication complexity (Dwyer
et al 1987; Anderson 2001). We speculate that such a lack of activity is difficult to reflect
upon and/or describe and therefore may be seen as relatively unimportant - with focus is
directed to other areas.
Another explanation is that pre-relationship activities are difficult to manage and are
therefore often avoided. The time frame for exploration of relational partners is long and in
many/most instances the contacts made bear little or no fruit. Exploration is concerned with
experimentation with new alternatives. “Its returns are uncertain, distant and often negative’’
(March, 1991, p. 85). There is some work, mostly in the management literature, which has
considered the circumstances under which exploration strategies are more likely and what the
nature of these strategies is likely to be (e.g. Gupta, Smith and Shalley 2006). Learning,
innovating and finding resources are the usually-given reasons for exploration (e.g.
Rosenkopf and Nerker 2001). There is less work that more specifically considers relationship
exploration, i.e. strategies concerned with expanding business contacts and/or more generally
identifying and evaluating relationship alternatives.
A stream of literature that is of particular relevance in understanding the value that contact
building and relationship development bring is that of the social capital. Relationships
provide (and indeed are) social capital (Burt 2005). While not the primary focus,
conceptualizations of social capital highlight the value of contractual (as distinct from
transactional) relationships (e.g. Flap 2002; Lin 2002; Burt 1992, 1997). And social capital is
strongly linked to value creation (Tsai and Ghoshal 1998).
In relationship initiation, the interaction activities associated with bridging – which involves
building social capital via interaction between different social groups, with loose bonds
between actors the goal – is particularly relevant (Eklinder-Frick, Eriksson and Hallen 2011).
(This is distinct from bonding – where activities which build strong connections within
groups are the goal). There is a need to balance processes of bonding and bridging (Daskalaki
2010). Effective patterns of bridging (and bonding) promote the creative potential in
organisations as well as facilitating collaboration (Slotte-Kock and Coviello 2010; Lin et al
2011).
The importance of bridging in terms of contact-building is particularly prominent in the
literature of social networks. Social networks are collections of interpersonal and/or business
relationships. The composition and interrelation of these collections have important structural
properties such as who interacts with whom and the nature of the connections between
individuals (liking or not and the strength this) (Re and Adar 2007; Fleisher 2005). Social
networks play a range of important roles in society operating in personal, professional and
business spheres, often linking them together in particular through the creating and
transferring of knowledge (Wasko and Faraj 2006).
The Processes of Networking
Networking encompasses the deliberate activities or chance encounters by individuals that
allow for the initiation, development and ongoing maintenance of network connections
(Keenan and Shiri 2009; DiMicco et al. 2008). There are a number of different motivations
identified within literature in an attempt to understand why individuals and firms spend time
and resources to engage in networking activities. These motivations include meeting new
people, keeping in touch with friends and colleagues, as a form of entertainment, media
sharing, campaigning projects and ideas, career advancement, knowledge sharing, managing
existing relationships, for self-promotion, advertising, marketing and information mining
(DiMicco et al., 2008).
The focus of social networking research has largely shifted to social media networking.
Internet-based social communication is often perceived as credible and important (Brown,
Broderick and Lee 2007). The processes of networking have been researched in the sphere of
social media (e.g. Trusov, Bucklin and Pauwels 2009, Heller Baird and Paranis 2011), but
there has been very limited consideration of it in face to face settings. However, the relative
importance of Internet social network contacts remains less than close friends and family in
making important decisions (Young, Donald, Benn and Freeman 2008; Ofcom 2008).
Similarly important are those networks of professional-based direct personal contacts such as
work colleagues in professional development and value creation. Social media contacts are
generally perceived as more distant than are those that are maintained through face to face
contact. This is case for both personal/social networks and professional organisational ones
(Tsai and Ghoshal 1998).
When this networking process is considered, it is most often normatively, i.e. focusing on
how to network more effectively (e.g. Szeto, Wright and Cheng 2006) rather than considering
how people do network. There is recognition that a possible way of building professional and
organizational networks is to attend events partially or solely intended to provide like-minded
people with a forum for meeting and forming advantageous links (e.g. O’Brien 2006). Again,
previous work focuses primarily on guiding effective networking at events (e.g. Kuzma,
Shanklin, and McCally 1992) as opposed to the micro level behaviours that attendees engage
in when preparing to attend an event, engaging at an event and their action after the event. It
is the latter, more descriptive nature of networking that is our focus.
Networking and Environmental Psychology
This research considers the behavioural process of networking in the framework of behaviour
setting theory and its offspring, environmental psychology (Barker 1968). In line with
Uhrich and Koenigstorfer (2009) we argue this is a suitable theoretical framework in which to
investigate the processes and environment of social interactions, in this case professional
event networking. This is particularly suitable because our focus is on behaviour occurring
within ‘a specific context/environment’ (Giuliani and Scopelliti 2009 p.376). These theories
see both the environmental and/or social ecology and behaviour occurring within it as
interacting parts of a system. This emerges from Kurt Lewin’s field theory (1951) which
focuses on explaining human behaviour by looking at the environment where the behaviour
takes place and considering the relationship between a person and their context.
“Environment” includes natural environments, social settings, built environments,
informational environments and learning environments (Donovan and Rossiter, 1982; Mayo,
Pastor and Wapner 1995; Uhrich and Koenigstorfer 2009). There are a number of different
contexts within which the theory of environmental psychology has been applied. Study
contexts include but are not limited to: the natural environment and sustainability (Gifford,
2007), residential environments (Craik, 1973), workplace environments (Mayo, Pastor and
Wapner 1995), entertainment environments like sporting events (Uhrich and Koenigstorfer
2009), institutional environments like schools and hospitals (Craik, 1973) and retail store
environments (Donovan and Rossiter 1982). These findings suggest that physical
environment and its atmosphere have an impact on the behaviour of participants. For
example, not surprisingly Donovan and Rossiter (1982) found that in a retail environment
which had bright lights and upbeat music shoppers were likely to spend more time in a store
and interact with sales staff.
The underlying premise in this kind of study is that real world behaviour has both structure
and pattern that can be observed and explained in part in terms of the setting in which it
occurs (Barker, 1968). This theory is widely used in studies in behavioural ecology, social
psychology, and behaviour studies although not in mainstream psychology (Propov and
Chompalov, 2012) and has been used in foundational studies of situational factors in
consumer behaviour (Belk 1975) and the impact of retail settings upon consumers (Robert
and John 1982). In more contemporary contexts, it is used as part of the theoretical
underpinnings in studies of service scapes (Bitner 1992) where service delivery and
consumption behaviour have been considered in terms of the way in which a physical
environment is able to influence the behaviour people in physical complexity venues such as
hotels, restaurants banks and hospitals (Bitner, 1992). This has been extended in the study of
social service scapes (Tombs & McColl-Kennedy2010) where the influence of individuals
upon each other is included and this interpersonal influence has been shown to influence the
service environment.
Belk (1975) has suggested a framework for analysis of situational and behaviour factors that
are part of the environment of behaviour. This “behavioural setting” is not limited to time and
space but also includes the sequence of action patterns or behaviour that takes place and
includes: i) easily discernible physical surroundings, ii) social surroundings, i.e. other people
who are present, who they are, what role they have and the interactions that occur, iii)
relevant units of time including past and anticipated events, iv) task definitions, i.e. the
intentions underpinning the focal behaviour such as shopping (which was Belk’s focus) or
networking and v) ongoing conditions such as feelings of acute anxiety, pleasantness,
hostility and excitement and momentary moods such as tiredness and illness.
While studies of behaviour settings in environmental psychology have not included
networking, the behavioural setting framework can be seen to have particular relevance for
analysis of behaviour in this setting. In professional event the interaction between interacting
participants is a major contributor to the environment. And, the theories of the social service
scape are also relevant to the observation of and reflections upon networking at events that is
the focus of our study, the discussion of which follows.
Methodology
The research reported here is part of a larger multi-method study. Data was collected at
business networking events run by the Western Sydney Business Connection (WSBC), an
independent not-for-profit organisation established in 1985 with a focus on (mostly SME)
business-to-business networking and development. At their events, observation was used to
ascertain what networking is, i.e. the ways that people actually “behave” at different kinds of
networking events. In addition data was collected about how participants remember their
behaviour.
Both are relevant. Previous research highlights reflection is insufficient because behaviour at
networking events is not accurately self-reported (Nisbett and Ross 1980, Nisbett and Wilson
1978). Instead the reflections of those observed are accounts of how they think they behaved.
However observation alone is insufficient because it does not give insight into why behaviour
occurred. The focus here is on reflections of recalled behaviour and reasons for it, however
future analysis will focus on both the actual behaviour observed and (systematic) differences
between behaviour and recall of it.
The participants were those people who were observed during one of eight WSBC
networking events. Observation involved first recording description of the event and its
organisation, then following several informants during an entire event (i.e. switching between
several attendees), photographing them in their networking context every few minutes and
recording descriptions of what they were doing, i.e. how they moved around the event venue,
who they spoke to, the nature of the groups they formed and joined, the length of and
engagement in conversation, and comments about what appeared to be happening, i.e.
perceptions and interpretations. They were recruited via the WSBC providing contacts, the
researcher approaching people at events and asking them to participate, asking people who
approached the researcher and appeared interested in the research to participate and through
snowball sampling with those attending earlier events recommending further participants.
Following the observation and survey phases which were conducted at the events (see
Marroun et al 2013 for discussion of the survey and its findings), follow up interviews 45 and
60 minutes in duration were conducted. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were used to
assist in establishing rapport and allow exploration of the complexities of relationship
development and networking processes (Burns and Bush, 2006; Neuman, 2006). The
interviews were conversational in style and questions were used only as needed to guide the
discussion with a different order of discussion for each interview the result. The interviews
included a discussion of the nature/role/history of the individual‘s social, and in particular,
professional networks as well as consideration of the network(s) his/her organization is in.
Explicit examples of overlaps between professional and organizational networks and vice
versa and assessment of value emerging were sought as well as description of their
networking processes. A portfolio of photographs illustrating the different phases of a
networking event was then presented to them (as suggested by Harper, 2002). This process,
known as “photo elicitation”, assisted participants to recall and share the experiences and
interactions that they had during the networking event at which they were observed.
The use of photographs in interviews provides a number of benefits. “Images evoke deeper
elements of human consciousness than do words… (it is) an interview process that provides a
different kind of information” (Harper, 2002 p.13). In addition, a portfolio allowed the
interviewer to develop a semi structured interview script to guide discussion of through issues
illustrated by the photo. These photos provided further stimuli for the informant (ClarkIbanez, 2004). The use of photographs facilitated the ability to elicit stories, examples and
anecdotes of business networking activities. The similar and different foci of the stories, the
choice of what topics to relate with stories and the congruence and divergence of the stories
presented all offer potential insights (Alvesson and Karreman, 2000). Furthermore,
discussion of photos was more time efficient than watching a video – an important
consideration when interviewing business professionals.
The interviews also involved participants describing their experiences of an event. Prior to
doing this they were asked to describe their existing networks both in general terms and using
an Ego Net template similar to those used in social network analysis where they indicated the
people/organisations that made up their network and indicated links between them. As part
of this, they were asked to position these actors in their personal, professional and/or
organisational networks. The Ego Net exercise was then used to stimulate participants to
recall the structure of their networks and produced a visual cue to further aid their discussion.
The categorization of network contacts and links as personal, profession and organizational
and discussion of overlaps between them, prompted further conversation regarding the
participant’s management of their social relations, e.g. their propensity to mix business
activities with pleasure and business contacts with personal friends. In addition the history of
network contacts, i.e. how they came to be and have evolved was explored.
Their history of attending networking events and the circumstances leading to their attending
them was then discussed in conjunction with the value that they gain by attending. Their
more specific networking process was also considered, i.e. planning or reflection prior to the
event, their recall of their, behavior during the event (differentiated according to how they
behaved at the beginning, middle and end of the event) and reasons for the behavior and the
way in which the participants then follow up with contacts made after the events. During
discussion of the behavior at the event, the previously-mentioned photo elicitation was used.
Two types of photographs were shown to participants –generic, in that that they captured
general event situations, and/or focused, where the informant was in the photo which had
been taken during the event where they were observed. The participant was then encouraged
to make comments as to what they saw in each photograph, including indicating whether this
was typical of their event behavior/process or not.
With informant consent, interviews were recorded and were transcribed in a consistent
format, to enable lexicographic analysis. The transcripts were analysed using the computer
programme Leximancer (www.leximancer.com). Leximancer is a software analysis tool that
is gaining increased recognition (Young, Wilkinson and Smith 2015 forthcoming). It
identifies and codes key concepts occurring in text based by the way words travel together directly and indirectly (Smith and Humphreys 2006). The basic assumption of this form of
semantic analysis is that there is an underlying meaning and structure in the way we write and
speak. In other words, we assume that informants communicate consciously, as well as
unconsciously, meanings and connections in the things they discuss, the order in which they
discuss them, and in the words used.
Leximancer performs both conceptual and relational content analysis. Content analysis is a
research technique for breaking down text into categories based on explicit rules of coding
(Krippendorf, 2004) and allows the researcher to analyse large volumes of data in a
systematic way, to discover and describe the issues of focal importance to the interview
subjects. Conceptual analysis, the most common form of content analysis, involves the
detection of explicit and implicit concepts in the text. Relational analysis measures the
relationships between concepts. In conceptual analysis, transcripts are measured for the
presence and frequency of concepts. Such concepts can be words or phrases, or more
complex definitions, such as collections of words representing each concept. One of
Leximancer’s main features is that it automatically extracts its own dictionary of terms for
each document set using this information. That is, it is capable of inferring the concept
classes that are contained within the text and extracting a thesaurus of terms for each concept.
This approach relieves the user of the task of formulating their own coding scheme.
Relational analysis, by contrast, measures how such identified concepts are related to each
other within the documents. Leximancer measures the co-occurrence of concepts found
within the text, automatically extracts this information, and represents the information
visually for comparison. By doing so it displays the main relationships between concepts.
One of the strengths of the Leximancer system is that it conducts both forms of analysis,
measuring the presence of defined concepts in the text as well as how they are interrelated.
(Leximancer Manual 2011). The process is deterministic and results in an explicit and
reproducible coding that reflects the semantics and interrelationships present in the text.
Leximancer uses the thesaurus produced for each concept to code the text so two sentence
blocks of text (the default) reflecting concepts are identified. The co-occurrences of concepts
are also computed and there is readily accessible linkage to the original text via a browser.
This facilitates interpretation of meaning and allows the focus on particular research
problems and relevant text. The analysis results in a summary concept map depicting the
importance, relative location of and strong links between concepts and output includes the
metrics that underpin the map.
Our Leximancer analysis was conducted in two phases. First an overarching summary of the
reflections of event attendance was done. This was followed by analysis that focussed on the
behaviour settings within the informants’ event networking.
1.1 The perceived nature of event attendance
Figure 1 presents an edited summary map of the 30 interview transcripts. Editing involved
merging similar concepts (e.g. event and events) and removing concepts with no semantic
meaning (e.g. guys, as in “you guys”). The map also includes the “tags” for the speakers in
each interview, i.e. the facilitator (top left) and the interviewee (bottom right). The tags are
pseudo-concepts that represent the entire discourse of the facilitator versus that of the
informants and positions this relative to the other concepts.
Figure 1 summarises the interviews in terms of the themes and concepts emerging. Themes
are clusters of interconnected concepts that are depicted in the map as balloons. Concepts are
made up of the words that are interconnected either because they occur together within two
sentence text blocks and/or occur with similar words (e.g. the words “gun” and “rifle” might
never be used together but might well be in a common concept because they are used with
similar words). Concepts are components of themes and their nature and position relative to
each other reflect the nature of a theme and the discourse as a whole. Concepts are shown as
spots. The concepts are connected by lines that indicate which are the strongest linkages, i.e.
the degree to which concepts were discussed together, discussed using the same language,
etc.
Using the default size setting of 50%, the five themes shown in Part A of Figure 1 emerged
from the Leximancer analysis: Events (green), Networking (blue), Look (brown), Business
(pink) and Doing (purple) (bold italics are used hereafter for the names of themes). The
themes separate into two groups with Events and Networking closest to the Facilitator tag at
the top of the map and the other three themes closest to the Interviewee tag. This proximity
indicates that 1) the Facilitator’s speech was more likely to contain text coded as the concepts
in the Events and Networking themes and the Interviewee’s to contain concepts coded as
Business, Look and Doing and 2) the distance between the tags indicates that the Facilitator’s
discourse was conceptually different from the Interviewee’s.
The concepts in the Event theme, event, attend, networking, started and interested, are
concerned with the how and why of attending the events (italics are used hereafter for the
names of concepts). The concepts within this theme are the most tightly clustered indicating
that they are the most closely related to each other, i.e. were fairly consistently discussed
together during the interview. The concepts in Network are concerned both with the nature of
professional and personal networks and the value to the organisation of particular (indicated
by example) networks. The proximity of the Network and Event themes and the position of
the concept value indicate that value is also discussed in conjunction with networking at
particular events. The concepts in Business are about the particular activities that happen at
events, people talk, meet a particular person or someone they were introduced to, exchange
cards, meet someone seated at their table (often events include meals and seating is around
tables). The Look theme is concerned with the strategic elements of attending events, i.e. why
people attend; informants look for benefits by starting relationships, making contact with
different people in industry. They emphasize that this is work for them, i.e. requires effort.
The Look theme is most concerned with reflections of what they did at the event they
recently attended, they speak to people, move around the room, join groups of people, seek
opportunities, get their name out there. The pattern of links in the Doing theme with the
concept links radiating out from the Interviewee tag are not very connected to each other
indicate that these are talked about in turn rather than collectively. These concepts are most
associated with the photo elicitation phase of the interview. Overall the map reflects the
nature of the interviews and the way they were structured. It also highlights that in
informants’ minds the activities of event attendance are not directly associated with
networking but not to as great a degree as anticipated. Informants instead consider their
goals, establishing relationships and contacts and indicate they seek these (look) events.
However they do not strongly associate these with events and networking and building
networks in their discourse.
Table 1: Summary Analysis of Interview Transcript
A) Edited Discovery Map
B) Ranked Concept List
Concept Name Freque Relancy
tivity
Speaker Tags
Facilitator
7160
100%
Interviewee
2858
40%
Word-like Concepts
event
1160
16%
business
945
13%
networking
611
09%
talk
607
08%
network
569
08%
look
512
07%
time
470
07%
work
465
06%
someone
423
06%
Professional
325
05%
different
305
04%
personal
301
04%
person
265
04%
doing
262
04%
use
229
03%
met
211
03%
meet
208
03%
organisation
191
03%
contact
188
03%
opportunity
180
03%
relationship
179
02%
Part B of Figure 1 shows the frequency of concept occurrence. The most frequently
appearing concepts are the speaker tags Facilitator and Interviewee with 7160 and 2858 two
sentence blocks of text respectively associated with each. (Inspection of the transcripts shows
that the Facilitator used shorter, simpler sentences and Interviewees used long, less structured
sentences, influencing the counting of the number of text blocks). The 22 most frequently
occurring concepts are also listed in Part B with the most frequent concept in each of the five
themes highlighted. The ten most frequently occurring concepts are concerned with
networking (611 coded as this concept) a particular event (1160), the continuing network
(569) including its professional (325) elements that are built upon and the activities of
business (945) – talking (607) to someone (423), the time (470) involved and exploring
events, i.e. having a look (512).
1.2 Behavioural Episodes in the event attendance process
What doesn’t emerge from the map and concept list of figure 1 is a sense of the process, i.e.
the behavioural settings/episodes that characterize event networking. To explore this, userdefined concepts (UDC) were generated for further lexicographic analysis. In this analysis
additional concepts are sought whereby words that represent an important concept that the
researcher wishes to focus on form the seed of a “new” concept. The concept is likely to
already exist but cannot be visualized because these words are instead in other, more general
concepts (Leximancer Manual 2011). It is important to note that Leximancer does not create
links, connections or relationships where they don’t exist in the data. However if there is
sufficient conceptual connection an additional concept is created, and positioned in the map
according to its “relatedness” to the existing concepts.
In line with the literature of behaviour episodes/settings presented earlier, UDCs of the
networking process were conceptualized as five concepts. Three of these represented the
networking phases: preparation for the event, behaviour during the event and follow up
behaviour. In addition a concept conceptualizing the physical environment of during event
behaviour was added (in line with the theories of environmental psychology) as was a
concept to represent the value sought and achieved from networking and event attendance.
Each of these five concepts was “seeded” with related words (based on the literature review
and face validty). For pre-networking_considerations the seed words included: expect, invite,
list, preparation, prior and research. For during-networking_behaviour’ the seed words were:
approach, introduce, socialise, standing, walk, selling and networking. For (during event)
networking_environment the seed words were: drinks, outside, speaker, room, hotel and table.
For post-networking_followup they were: call, meeting, database, email, refer, ring and
contact. And for networking_value the seed words related to value gained (as opposed to
synonyms of the word value) and included: active, advice, brand, connect, contacts, referral
and trust.
The analysis was conducted in two phases. First an analysis was run separately for each user
defined concept and its nature and position in the Figure 1 map checked. This enabled us to
ascertain that the hypothesized concept existed and that it was related to the existing concepts
in the ways anticipated. As the five concepts were all viable and positioned similarly to our
theoretically derived expectations, the five UDCs were then included together in the analysis.
This showed that the during-network behaviour concept was over-connected to the other
concepts. This diminished its explanatory power. To overcome this problem the concept was
split into two with the activities (verbs) of during network behaviour in one concept
(approach, chat, dealing, exchange, exchanging, giving, introduce, introduced, listening, look,
looking, meet, networking, saying, selling, sit, sitting, socialise, speaking, spoke, stand,
standing, stay, talking, thinking, touch, walk and working) and the objects and states
associated with the event behaviour (nouns) in another (card, cards, conversation,
conversations, deal, discussion, meeting, social, talk, work). This is consistent with behaviour
setting frameworks (as previously discussed) and with theories of event structure that
differentiate event processes and structure in this way (Abbott 2001, Bairstow and Young
2012)
Figure 2 presents the resulting six concepts within the conceptual map that was presented in
Figure 1. In Figure 2 the size and composition of the theme circles, which represent the
connectedness of groups of concepts, have altered somewhat to include these UDCs. Themes
are a visualization tool to enable consideration of more or less connected clusters of concepts
(i.e. the analyst can change the settings and produce maps with more or less themes within
them). The theme changes are due to the greater connectedness between concepts as a result
of the inclusion of these concepts play, i.e. the nature and quantity of connectedness has
changed. This does not alter the frequency or position of the original concepts which, as
already noted, are not altered by UDC inclusion. (There are slight differences in concept’s
positions in the two Figures but this is because random seeds are used to general the map
with slight variations the result. As already mentioned, all other parts of Leximancer’s data
processing and analysis are completely deterministic.)
Figure 2: Map of All User Defined Concepts with Speaker Tags
A) Discovery Map
B) Ranked Concept List
Concept label
during-networking
_behaviour VERB
networking_value
during-networking
_behaviour NOUN
event
business
networking_environment
networking
talk
network
look
time
work
someone
post-networking_followup
professional
different
personal
person
doing
pre-networking
_considerations
Freq
Relativity
2440 34%
1913 27%
1181 16%
1160
945
781
611
607
569
512
470
465
423
399
325
305
301
265
262
16%
13%
11%
09%
08%
08%
07%
07%
06%
06%
06%
05%
04%
04%
04%
04%
247
03%
The additional concepts are positioned in the four of the five themes. Pre-networking, i.e.
preparing for the event is within the Event theme which includes concepts relating to the
event, attend(ing) it, (being) interested (in an event) and networking at it. The theme below
Event fills the vacant space that was in the centre of the map in Figure 1. It includes the
periphery of what was the Business theme in Figure 1 but primarily the theme functions to
link concepts to its central concept, during-network behaviour VERB. This is the hub of a
large number of varied concepts, i.e. it links the activities that occur at an event such as
wanted, talk, look, saying, working, and met. It is also linked to networking and thus to the
Event theme. This theme also includes the UDC networking_environment.
Networking_environment is closely linked to the physical environment via the concept table
(i.e. where one sits and thus who one is proximate to and able to network with for much of
the event), and is proximate to whole and room. During_network_behaviour NOUN is in the
Business theme, which combines the Business and Look themes of Figure 1 and includes
part of that Figure’s Doing theme. During_network_behaviour NOUN is connected to
concepts such as business, work and opportunity and to the event artefact, cards. The fourth
theme, Network, contains the cluster of concepts network, professional and personal and the
user-defined concepts of networking value and post networking activities. Networking_value
is linked to social structure delimiters such as contact, social, industry and network. The
concept contact links networking value and post networking activities. The fifth theme
includes most of Figure 1’s Doing theme’s concepts. In Figure 2 the theme includes the
general behaviour concept speak and the nouns group, conversation, room, name and time.
These are linked to Speaker_interviewee but not to during_network_behaviour NOUN as we
anticipated. This is probably because the discourse coded as these concepts primarily comes
from the photo elicitation phase of the interviews.
The inclusion the additional concepts into the analysis results in additional explanatory power
in the map in Part A of Figure 2. The position of networking_value in relation to the other
concepts shows it is linked to post-networking_followup via contact. This indicates that
contacts are at the heart of networking activities and are a key element of it.
Networking_value is also close and linked to industry and social, indicating that these too are
sources and/or recipients of the value emulating from networking. Also directly linked to
networking_value is network (linked to both professional and personal but with the stronger
link to professional), indicating that one’s networks are the sources and/or recipients of
networking_value. These associations emerge from the discourse of the informants as
networking_value is directly linked to the discourse of the interviewees
(Speaker_interviewee), and is not linked to the Facilitator (Speaker_facilitator), as shown by
the direct link between the concepts.
This map provides further insight into the role played by the interview participants in the
interviews. As previously mentioned, the concepts close and/or strongly linked to each tag
indicate something of the focus of that participant’s discourse. Speaker_facilitator is, as
before, linked to event and value (but the latter although in the same theme and reasonably
proximate is not directly linked to networking value and its concepts). Speaker_facilitator is
only linked the networking process concepts indirectly – through event and networking to pre
and during network behaviour VERB and through this to networking_environment.
Speaker_facilitator and these networking process concepts are not linked to post networking
behaviour and networking value. Speaker_interviewee is linked directly during network
behaviour NOUN and to networking_value as well as to mixed set of concepts to the left of
the tag.
The different configuration of concepts around each tag provides further information about
the interviews. The concept set adjacent to Facilitator is tightly connected which indicates
conceptual consistency across the interviews. This is in part because there was a single
interviewer using a guide. In contrast, the concepts linked to Interviewee are greater in
number, more disparate and therefore are less tightly connected. This in part reflects that the
discourse of interviewees emulated from thirty different individuals who had differing
reflections to share.
The ranked concept list presented in Part B of Figure 2 further highlights the centrality and
importance of the additional concepts. Thirty-four percent of interview text is coded as the
actions of networking (networking_behaviour VERB), 16% of the text is concerned with the
social structures and objects (networking_behaviour NOUN) that surround these actions and
11% is coded as the physical networking_environment. Twenty-seven percent of text is coded
as networking_value. The pre and post networking considerations (with 3% and 6% of text
so coded) are less prominent but are still among the 20 most frequently occurring concepts
and have considerable amounts of the text coded. This in combination with the positions of
these concepts in Figure 2’s map shows that embedded in the discourse of the facilitator and
interviewees is consideration of the process of behaviour and behaviour settings that
characterize event networking.
Discussion and Conclusions
The findings emerging from this analysis provide new insights into event networking
practices and processes. The social and physical environments of networking combine with
at-event activities to produce outcomes. More specifically our findings indicate:
• That value does emerge from and flow to peoples’ professional and personal networks
and that this happens in conjunction with building contacts and participating in other
event follow up activities
• Some but not all elements of the physical and social environment are associated with
networking value
• Other elements of the physical and social environment of the event are associated
with networking behaviour
• Networking behaviour is less associated with networking value than anticipated.
• The researcher/facilitator and interviewees conceptualize event behaviour in different
ways
Our findings emerge from combing a structured lexicographic/semantic with theoretically
informed interpretation. This approach to analysis is particularly useful for this research
problem. This automated lexicographic analysis provides a useful and reliable summary of
informants’ reflections and provides insights into the deeper processes that are operating
which are further informed by the literature of behaviour setting. Furthermore, the
lexicographic method enables some assessment of the interviewer effect – an ongoing issue
in assessing the quality of qualitative work (Turner 2010). Here, consideration of the overall
conceptual structure in both Figures 1 and 2 shows that Interviewees have a quite different
conceptual structure within their discourse than does the Facilitator. The speaker tags (a
quasi-concept that includes only the text spoken by each actor) are positioned about 180
degrees apart on the maps and have entirely different concepts associated with and these
concepts are not substantially connected.
This is confirmed by co-occurrence analysis (not shown) which shows that the concepts that
most frequently appear in each party’s discourse are far from identical. In interviewees’
discourse the most frequent concepts are opportunity, group, working, conversation and meet
and in the facilitator’s they are event, attend, value, network and professional. This tells us
that a) there is some difference such that the interviewees were not excessively influenced by
the facilitator during the interview and thus we can plan greater credence on the validity of
their reflections and b) there is some similarity in that the concepts have, on the face of it,
some overlap, i.e. both see positives in events. However Interviewees appear to be framing
event activities in terms of future potential with concepts such as opportunity, conversation
and meet that may lead to despite the facilitator’s focus on actual outcomes with concepts like
value, attend and professional and network.
These findings provide an important foundation for further research. A coherent framework
in which to analyse the reflections of those who have networked at one or more events
enables a richer and more comprehensive comparison of the observed behaviour at events
and. participants’ reflections about it. This is the next step in this research project. Our
primary goal in this analysis will not be to test informants’ memories of how they behaved
but rather to marry the different insights that each type of information provides (as discussed
by Wilkinson and Young 2004) and thereby gain synergies of insight.
This research has obvious implications for managers. Companies invest in their staff by
sending them to professional events (although this is not the sole reason for attendance). A
greater understanding of event processes and perceived value of events can help organisations
to better allocate resources to events, provide training for staff who attend events to assist in
improving their effectiveness at them and to determine who the best ambassadors for their
organisation are. This research provides an initial step towards this understanding. In
addition, an understanding of the nature of the value for the individuals in attending events
can facilitate more effective networking practices and better utilization of the contacts that
are made as well as better integration of these contacts into attenders’ social and professional
networks as well as the networks of the relevant organisations.
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